Sunday Sermon

 

Glory

Isaiah 49:3

He told me, “Israel, you are my servant. I will show my glory through you.”

 

I have to confess to a choice I made a few years ago. Let me set this up by saying that I have seven grandchildren and I love them all in away that I cannot rightly express because that love is beyond words. There is a joy that is found in grandchildren that is a wonder and a delight. My problem was I was never able to hold one of my grandchildren the day they were born. Some times it was days but often it was weeks or months before I got to hold those cherished lives and that bugged me to no end. No one was at fault for these delays but things happen like being on the other side of the world or a child having to spend time in the NICU. With my last grandchild I was determined that not only was I going to hold that child but I would be the first one to hold that child other then their mother and father. On the day my last grandchild was born my wife was babysitting the older grandchild and I was to come and relieve her so she could go to the hospital and see the new grandchild. Instead of going to help my wife out I went straight to the hospital and would not leave until I got to hold my grandchild. I then went and relived my wife so she could go and see her newborn grandchild. The reason I confess this now it because I want to talk about the joy found in children coming into the world and how it affects my faith. We have a God who gives life and finds joy in that and because I am a grandfather of seven there is some understanding of the joy that God feels. Our God delights in life and longs for us to know how wonderful life is. The reason the angels sing at the birth of Jesus, and they sing so loud they break into our reality, is because Jesus was born to bring life to a broken humanity and to fill our lives with hope and joy instead of dread and despair. When Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden, I am sure it was God who was the most sad because He knew how they were going to suffer and His love for them did not want that for them. God calls us not to slavery to commands but to the joy of life that the commands bring to us. All that God does is to teach us about Him and who He is so we will find our hope and joy in God. There is joy in life and God wants us to know that joy even when life is difficult because to know God is to know life and life for God is joy. If we want to know real joy we need to know the maker of life and to learn what He has to say about life. Trusting in God is not about being good people it is finding that our God brings joy to us and so we live as God calls us to because of the joy the flows from knowing God. Faith in the living God is all about life and we need to know that God longs for us to know how wonderful life was meant to be. As a grandfather I have found that the bring of life into the world is the most joyful thing ever and this has brought me to a deeper faith in the God who is willing to die so that we might have real life.

       The words in Psalm one verses two and three in particular have always interested me. It talks about loving the Lords teaching and thinking about them everyday. The reason these words interest me is because I have not always loved the teaching of the Lord. God’s teaching was most always a threat to me and it felt like if I messed up I was going to be in trouble. It was only as I got older that I began to understand that the teaching of the Lord was not there to punish me but to make me into the person I was meant to be. My God loved me enough to be honest with me about my sin and the hate in my heart and to tell me a different way to live. From that moment I began to see the joy that flows from God’s teaching. Then there was the day that I saw that the teaching of the Lord was even more central to my faith because those teachings reveled to me who my God was. A whole new vista opened up to me and I found myself longing to know what God had to teach me because in it I got to know God Himself. Today my desire to be with God is filled with and expectation of joy and not fear because I know who this God is and I want to be with Him. Once I grasped this I also understood what God was saying in verse three. Yes, grounding ourselves in God’s word will make us righteous and will teach us to be loving people who know the truth but there is more to a tree planed by the water then just being strong because we obey what we are taught. We become strong people because we trust in the God who invites us to come and be with Him. There is hope and joy in knowing the God who gives life. It is God who gives us life and makes us succeed because we are doing His work and will. What joy we find in this glorious God who revels himself and calls to us to come and to know Him through His word.

        Have you ever looked at medieval churches and wondered what caused people to spend the time, money and effort to build them. Some of these churches took decades to build and there are a few that even required centuries to be completed. Think about this, people gave money to build a structure that they would not see finished in their life time. Or consider a builder who spends his life time on a church but never sees it in its finale state. The beauty of these massive buildings is astounding. The only thing we have to go on to figure out the motivation of the people back then is what they wrote down and the most often remarked purpose for doing these buildings is because they wanted to show the glory of God. And when you consider there are very few names of builders until we get into the renaissance I believe that these people were serious about the glory of God. In our verse we have God talking about His glory and that He wants people to see His glory. A large part of our faith should be based on the glory of God. God does not demand we see His glory but all that God does shows the glory of God. We give Jesus glory not because Jesus demands it but when we grasp that what Jesus did was to deal with our sin how can we not give Jesus the glory He deserves. I once heard it said that beauty is simple the glory of God in a system we can understand. Thus, the more beautiful something is the closer we find ourselves longing for the God who we see in the beauty. The idea that God’s glory is like a light in our darkness and we long for that glory so much so we will even clutch onto things that are just reflections of God’s glory. We as humans need the God who shines with glory because it lights our way in our day to day lives. It has to be clear we do not worship the glory of God but the God who is glory and that is our hope. There is this great big God who shines brightly and calls us to find hope in the glory that radiates from God and I love that idea. Best of all we can live in that glory if we will seek out God and begin to learn about who God is and what God calls us to. All of our faith is about one day standing the glory of God and singing God’s praise. Seeking the glory of God will give us a path to knowing the God who loves us and who wants to give us the light of His glory to show us the way to live as God longs for us to do.

        We don’t think about it very much until we don’t have it but the electric light is a world changer. To be able to light the darkness at will is something that most people in history would think as sci-fi. But it is not really the light that is of real importance it is the power that is used to make the light work that changes things. The electric light is just a result of the energy source that makes it possible. When it comes to our faith, I want us to think of that in a similar manner. Our faith has nothing to do with us and it is all about the power of God to shine in us. This is why this verse is so good because it sets things in the right light. We are not the origin of the glory that is in our lives but we are a reflection of the glory of God. It is God who empowers us and fills us with the glory of God. Every human to some extent is a reflection of the glorious creation of God and so speaks of God’s glory but those who choose to step into a place of trust in God revel the real glory of God to the world. What is wonderful is that God uses us to shine His glory into the world. That should humble us and we should be so grateful that God wants to use us for His glory. The real question is do we let God’s glory shine through us. What are we doing each day to let God and His glory be revealed to the world through us? An important part of our trust in God is that we humble ourselves and we lift up the God who saves us because God is the one who lights the world not us. We should be glad that God wants to use us and we should work at being what God calls us to be but we need to know it is God’s power not ours that lights a dark world. Let God shine in us and we will light a world with the glory of God that will transform generations we will never see.

    The idea behind this verse is the thought that people cannot see God but they can see us and God wants to show His glory through us. In this verse God is going to use Israel to show His glory and this concept has not changed. God fills us with His spirit because He wants to world to see His glory. What hope we have that God can make use of our sinful lives and tell the world of a God who redeems people. Jesus talks about a lamp that lights the whole house and God calls to us to be that lamp. And here is the secret we need to know the reason God wants to fill us with His glory is so we begin to long for the time we will stand before God and sing of His might and glory. In short God is getting us ready for eternity by showing His glory through us. Our plea should be, God fill us with your glory so we might light a world that needs to know of a God like you.